Fontaine Exorcism
Fontaine Exorcism is a highly complicated and ritualistic''' 'branch of magic that is performed only by properly trained female members of the Fontaine Family, with no exception. It cannot be learned by men, nor can it be learned by non Fontaines. The magical forms of Fontaine Exorcism are not just limited to normal Exorcism, and there are many parts to it, used for combating both spirits and non spirits. Fontaine Exorcism is a very diverse and powerful art that takes at least a few years to learn and generally requires the practitioner to have some knowledge about potential enemies to allow it to be used to its fullest extent. Unlike other forms of magic, Fontaine Exorcism is not optimized for direct combat in many cases and require the user to make proper preparations to use it beforehand. Fontaine males can learn, understand and even teach the skills, but they are unable to actually perform the skills themselves. This is because the skills were woven to be used by Vylliara Fontaine herself, and thus require the user to somewhat be similar to Vylliara in a way. As female Fontaines are all flawed copies of Vylliara, in some way or another, this is why they can use Fontaine Exorcism. Also, some abilities might require life force, and female Fontaines are able to dissipate and refine their life force for such, unlike males. Fontaine Magical Girls are not expected to master Fontaine Exorcism as much as their other female peers, since their power alone is more valuable than external abilities. Many of them tend to be lacking in the use of Fontaine Exorcism skill and only can use the most basic abilities, but there are exceptional individuals who will master some of the magical techniques. Fontaine Exorcism is spread into multiple branches, all with unique traits and properties, which present the user with different challenges in actuating them fully. Since the usage of Fontaine Exorcism is so complicated, there is often a long training process needed to enable one to utilize the rituals effectively. While all Fontaine girls begin learning Fontaine Exorcism from young, most Fontaine girls can hardly do anything more than the most basic of skills. Fontaine Exorcism is a magic form. Hence it is not affected by the power cancelling nature of Nirncrux on Fontaine powers, as it is not a Fontaine power but a magic form unique to the women of the Fontaine family. A female Fontaine can fall back on such if she is affected by Nirncrux and well versed in Fontaine Exorcism. This ability is only present in the ACA Reloaded half of the ACA Canon. Other Names * Fontaine White Magic * Fontaine Ritual Magic Effects and abilities Fontaine Exorcism has five branches, each unique. The five branches are Spirit Awakening, Rune Seals, Oblivion Rituals, Elemental transformation and Ancestral Recall. ''As all users are female, only the pronoun "her" will be used. Oblivion Rituals The most conventional usage of the Fontaine Exorcism, and probably also the most basic. It is probably the closest in nature to conventional magic, and also has some of the most basic requirements. However, it is also the least versatile, as it requires a pact with a Daedric Prince that is somewhat friendly and benevolent to the Fontaine family, of which there exist only nine: Jyggalag, Hermaeus Mora, Meridia, Nocturnal, Azura, Vaermina, Mephala, Sanguine or in rare cases, Molag Bal. This will limit the ability to whatever the Daedric Prince chooses to grant, although they are generally kind enough to give rather versatile powers, especially Hermaeus Mora. This branch of the Fontaine Exorcism has a common set of spells, no matter which prince the user chooses to contract and offer her services to. This is the banishing spells, which involve opening a portal to Oblivion and pulling daedra through these portals. The user will convey her victims to the plane of the Daedric Prince they contract with, and thus banish the daedra into a world where they will be tortured for eternity. The other spells all depend on the Daedric Prince that is contracted by the user, and so have wildly different effects: * Hermaeus Mora's contract abilities involve calling forth his servitors to do the bidding of the contractor. Contracts with him allow the contractor to summon Seekers, Lurkers, Binding Tentacles and Weapons of Mora (much like Miraak's Staff and Sword). Hermaeus Mora normally wishes for quite a light tribute, in the form of books, new knowledge or money. * Jyggalag's contract abilities focus on instilling order and are focused on Forced Stasis. Thus, the user gains the power to paralyse objects, ranging from people to abstract concepts. The user can thus paralyse air to make platforms, stop hearts and even freeze time. The freezing only lasts so long, but can be powerful when used right. Jyggalag requires the user of the powers designate a piece of apparel like a ring or necklace to connect to him, and the contractor to meditate with and master said item as his weapon to them. If the contractor loses the item, they lose the right to use the powers. * Meridia's contract abilities are very special, based around holy sword techniques, and summoning of copies of Dawnbreaker. This enables the user to use the copy of Dawnbreaker for many special techniques available only to a holy sword that manipulates energy. Meridia doesn't ask for tributes in the traditional sense, and freely lends her sword for the destruction of the "unnatural" (undead and spirits). She will also grant it in times of need. Meridia's only required tribute is the performance of a weekly veneration ceremony for her. * Nocturnal's contract abilities are based on shadows and concealment. They are best for assassins, and allow the user to screen themselves and others from sight via invisibility. The powers can even render spells and projectiles invisible to enemies. The power can also be used to teleport short distances. Nocturnal's contract is normally always active once contracted to her and no tribute is paid at all. The only possible way to have this revoked is if one starts worshiping the Divines. * Azura's contract abilities are also utility based, but can be very powerful. In exchange for any form of direct combat utility, Azura can grant some form of utility by granting her contractor a book that can show the fate of anything that has a fate. It allows the user access to normally unavailable information. Azura requires a blank book be turned into her magical artifact, and that book is the symbol of the contract. It has to be carried around and read to glean information. * Vaermina's contract abilities are used for direct attack, allowing the user to inflict dreams that cause mental trauma to the opponents, which can disorient and even kill opponents if the mental trauma inflicted is severe enough. It also allows the user to drain dreams from sleeping opponents for vitality and energy restoration, and can be used to instantly kill sleeping people. Vaermina also grants a power that lets the user cause people to fall asleep. Vaermina often asks her contractors to play silly games with her when they dream, so the Fontaine girl must sleep after she uses her power. * Mephala's contract abilities are not useful for direct combat, but are very powerful in engineering situations. The powers granted allow the user to alter the emotions, desires and even the habits of people around her. This can be used to cause enemies to kill each other, tear families apart through engineering disunity, and even mind control people to do whatever the user wants. Mephala's contractor abilities normally come with the price of settling problems between random couples, be it marital disputes or playing matchmaker, which can be annoying to the contractor. * Sanguine's contract abilities are a useful support ability. It allows the user to refill their vitality from draining all sorts of things. The user can drain the taste of food and beverage to restore lost health, or drain the emotions of someone to restore magicka. It drains what the five senses can perceive, and what the heart can feel in order to sustain the user. Sanguine normally asks his contractors to eat and drink excessively. * Molag Bal rarely forms contracts with Fontaines, but if he does, the Fontaine girl gains the Power of Domination. This grants the incredible strength and speed of a transformed Vampire Lord when it is invoked, along with some abilities like transforming into mist, supernatural reflexes, blood bending and unnatural durability. However, to invoke the contract requires the Contractor to tattoo a symbol of her allegiance to Molag Bal, and bathe in the blood of her foes in order to call forth the power. The weakness of the Oblivion Rituals performed through contract is the toll they exact on the user, the severity which depends on the Daedric Prince forming the contract, and the terms and conditions of the contract. Since the contract cannot bind a Fontaine woman to eternal servitude to the Daedric Prince, they have to ask for other things in return for the contract. Other forms of contract might require the contractor to kill a certain number of adherents of Daedric Princes who are in opposition to her chosen Prince, with a quota set. It might also require the user perform sacrifices to the chosen Prince every now and then. While most contracts follow a fixed format, Daedric Princes have been known to arbitrarily make the lives of certain Fontaine women harder or easier on whim. Each contractor can only contract a single Daedric Prince in her whole life, so she has to choose wisely who to contract to when she finally decides to make the choice. Changing contract or having another contract is not possible for any practitioner. Rune Seals Rune Seals are a very unconventional form of magic that a Fontaine Exorcism practitioner might use. The basis of Rune Seals is the writing of specific runes on slips of paper, which is done before the Rune Seals have to be used. The paper is then infused with magicka and kept as "ammunition" of sorts. Paper is normally used as it is light, and a lot can be carried, although it is always not reusable unlike more durable items such as steel cards. Rune Seals can also directly be carved into walls or equipment if necessary, but this is often rare as it is too tedious to do this in the middle of combat. Thus, swords can be made to burst into flame on command (although this cannot be done to a Fontaine Forged Sword), shields can cast wards or more, when runes carved on them are invoked by the power of the caster. There are multitude ways to use Rune Seals, but the most standard is to use single slips of paper to cause single spell effects. The user will pull out her desired slip of paper with the runes that she prepared on it in advance, and activate it with a single spark of magicka. This activation spell is taught to all female Fontaines from young. This causes the paper to react, and it burns up in blue flame, as the effect takes place by drawing upon the magicka present in the world. Rune Seals can be used for many things, such as: * Direct attack spells, like summoning orbs of lightning above a target to discharge thunderbolts vertically down or explosions of flame. * Enchanting spells, which can enchant familiars, spirits and weapons with elemental or conceptual effects, allowing them to apply it on hit. * Enemy enchanting spells, which can place debuffs and damage over time effects on foes or their equipment to hurt them. * Weapon Summoning, where burned slips of paper bind weapons for the use of the Rune Seals user. * Conjuration. A Fontaine cannot perform conjuration normally, but this allows summons to be called from Oblivion, bound to the Rune Seal. This necessitates pasting the Rune Seal somewhere. * Alteration spells which can boost jump height for people stepping on the rune, or apply featherfall. Mage armor can also be performed. * Restoration spells to restore health and vitality * Repair spells * Utility spells which can generate things such as clean drinking water, light or summon food. The runed paper need not always be held in the hand and burnt, although that is the normal way to use it. It can also be magically stuck to a wall or the ground, where a special spell which costs a bare minimum of magicka can be used to activate the Rune Seal. This allows for traps to be made, all for almost no magicka during the phase of combat. Rune Seal papers can also be thrown, and they can fly through the air as a flying blade would. This allows for seals with effects such as explosion to hit ranged targets. A basic telekinesis spell is normally all that is needed to transport the papers to their targets, or they can be stuck on summoned creatures. Rune Seals can be made more complicated, by burning multiple runed papers together. This can allow the user to combine effects, such as making the user summon a flaming sword to her hands, or even make traps that fire weapons at enemies. Finally, there are very powerful spells, which require that the Rune Seals be set in a fixed formation. This is known as Rune Seal Arrays, and are almost always extremely powerful attack or defense spells which do not cost magicka to use. They take quite long to set up and are often impractical in combat unless there is a lot of combat support given to the one setting up the Array or multiple people are setting it up. When an Array is triggered, the tides of battle are often turned. Arrays allow the user to perform ridiculous spells for no magicka at all, such as the formation of healing sanctuaries that block attacks from the outside, or the creation of a thunderstorm that proceeds to discharge all its charge in a single beam aimed at the center of the Array. They thus form powerful tactical level spells that are far more powerful than what any normal battlemage can do, without requiring years of practice with magic. Rune Seals offer an obvious advantage for the user - the user doesn't even need anything more than the barest whisper of magicka to actually activate any of the Rune Seals during combat itself, the runes written on the papers doing most of the work with the world's magicka. However, the preparation phase is often tedious, and runed papers can only be used once, which means the practitioner must replace everything they used. Runes carved into equipment will make the equipment degrade significantly every time the runes are invoked. Spirit Awakening Spirit Awakening is another unique form of magic, practiced within the Fontaine family. It relies on the natural abilities of spirits, and is based heavily on the use of Alteration. It is based on the natural abilities of spirits and entities, allowing the practitioner to copy and utilize such powers. Spirit Awakening doesn't use magic to perform analogues of a spirit's ability, it instead allows the practitioner to utilize the abilities like the spirit themselves, which means lowered magicka costs and certain differences. Spirit Awakening allows a female Fontaine to use her nature as a "receptacle of power" to draw on the characteristics of reality and information on spirit legends to manifest oneself like a spirit, which means that it is theoretically possible to trick the world into believing the user is a spirit. This creates a sort of void that the world must fill, so the world changes and grants the user the abilities of the spirit that she has tricked the world into believing she is. The versatility of this power is very high, as many spirits have many different powers. Practitioners of Spirit Awakening will also gain a connection to the spirit world when they first begin, and gain an ability to read the spiritual auras of people and spirits alike. This allows them to tell details such as species, gender and general intent from simply reading the auras, much like how spells like detect life works. The difference is that this Aura Vision can see everything, including automatons, and provide details such as species and gender. Also, supernatural entities tend to be a lot more neutral to a practitioner, unless their natural instinct is overridden. Spirit Awakening has the following effects: * Imbuing oneself with a Spriggan's powers will grant the user the ability to command and understand animals, which can be used to get allies in the wild. It also allows the user to control insect swarms and thorny vines for attack and defense. Lastly, the user can create hardened bark as armor if necessary. Users of the Spriggan form can command creatures with a command spell even in their normal form. * Imbuing oneself with a Wispmother's power will grant the user the ability to summon an unlimited amount of wisps as necessary, as well as passively grant a freezing cloak of cold wind that constantly swirls around the user. The user also can float in the air and levitate. The user also gains powerful cryokinesis which enhances the power of frost spells, and grants the basic spells of frostbite and ice spike, which can be cast for no magicka. Users of the Wispmother form can summon wisps for their use without the awakening * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Draugr will grant the user unnatural resistance to pain, and the ability to stop wounds from bleeding. Users can also command maimed limbs to keep moving with no loss of effectiveness. Also, resistance to frost and shock are increased. Resistance to flame is unchanged as the user is still living. Should the user know shouts, their shouts will be enhanced. Users of the Draugr form can move their maimed limbs for magicka if necessary even without actuating the power. * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Spectre will grant the user to turn ethereal on command, and allow them to use a touch which can drain the will of enemies, sapping their ability to fight, draining away their magicka and stamina. Also, users of a Spectre's ability can move very fast, gliding across ground and water. They cannot fly though. Users of the Spectre form do not require awakening to perform the draining touch * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Troll will grant the user an unusually strong health regeneration, as well as greatly enhanced stamina to fight. Strength is not significantly increased for the user in this case. The user also has heightened senses during the power use. If not awakened, the user can still use a spell to rapidly seal wounds and restore some stamina. * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Harpy will allow the user to summon a pair of ethereal wings which can grant the ability of high speed flight. The wings can also be used to fire razor sharp feathers, or be used as blades to slash people. The user also gains very fast and intuitive reflexes. The users of the Harpy form do not require awakening to heighten their reflexes for fleeting moments. * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Giant massively increases physical strength, but does not really provide any other bonus parameters. It also increases how much the user can carry, and allows them to convert food and potions more effectively, leading to improved effects, especially for food. Passively, mastery of this form increases carry capacity for magicka reserved. * Imbuing oneself with the power of a Hagraven boosts magical might and accelerates magicka absorption from the atmosphere, which indirectly boosts the regeneration of magicka. Spells will not be learned, but all known spells become stronger, and the user also gains sharpened fingernails which can slash like claws. The user can cast a spell to rapidly absorb magicka from the atmosphere without the awakening. Spirit Awakening is not a foolproof power, though. It places a lot of strain on the body to cast and maintain the effect, so much so that for most beginners, it is only a once a day power that maintains itself for a short time. Each Spirit Awakening form is a separate ability and must be learned on its own, taking years to even master one form. Even for the strongest of practitioners, it is often difficult to maintain a spirit form for more than 30 minutes, and the most experienced practitioners generally need at least 5 hours of rest between awakenings. Spirit Awakening also grants some basic powers as spells that can be cast with magicka to the practitioners of any form of it, related to the form they are currently practicing. This enables parts of the Spirit Awakening's power to be performed without the need to perform the full Spirit Awakening, for much less strain on the body. Ancestral Recall Ancestral Recall is a very varied power, which is linked to the Fontaine Crypt, an Oblivion Plane accessed via the Fontaine Mausoleum via portal. In this crypt, every dead Fontaine's body is laid to rest, and it is a plane that forms an infinite landscape of coffins, each containing the body of a dead Fontaine. When Fontaines die naturally, their souls do not linger on and fly beyond Oblivion to Aetherius, seeking Sebastien's paradise. However, should a Fontaine die an unnatural death and have unfulfilled wishes, their soul lingers on in the crypt, patient and waiting for a moment where they are ready to ascend. Ancestral Recall is based around recalling these souls as spiritual guardians. A notable point is that most of the Spirit Guardians one can summon via the Ancestral Recall pacts are female. This is because the front line fighters of the Fontaine Family are almost always female, as the females develop powerful abilities that aid in fighting as a warrior in most cases. Thus, statistically, it is most likely for them to die with unfulfilled wishes and desires, thus causing them to linger. However, there are spirits of Male Fontaines that still linger on, as well as the extremely rare spirit of a Fontaine Magical Girl. These spirits often are harder to find, and so a random summoning will not work in the favor of the summoner, as they are unlikely to answer a call from the user. Thus, more magicka is needed to pull them from the Fontaine Crypt Realm to the real world. The practitioner of Ancestral Recall simply learns a few spells when she begins her initiation into the rites. This first spell will allow her to call one of the Fontaines that still linger on in the Fontaine crypt to her side as her first Ancestral Guardian. The two of them from then on will be bound as partners, and should the practitioner be able to fulfill the wishes of the spirit, she can help the spirit ascend to Aetherius. However, this is when things get more complicated. The practitioner must not just be a summoner to bring things from the Fontaine Crypt to her aid, she must become a portal to the Fontaine Crypt itself. As she learns more and more, the user of Ancestral Recall will have to find a way to call more and more varied spirits to protect and fight for her by forming a summoner - guardian contract, remembering their names and powers. As the spirits are unbound, she must be able to lead them as one would a team as well. A high level practitioner can summon multiple Fontaine Spirits to her service and even borrow their powers by acting as a lens to refract their abilities at the enemy. This can turn the highest level users into dangerous enemies, even if they do not originally possess a power that is very threatening. Elemental Transformation Elemental Transformation is the original magic of Vylliara, and one of the oldest techniques within the art of Fontaine Exorcism. It posits that many spells can be created by the fusion and transformation of the elements, which means that only basic elements would be needed to create the most complex of spells. The Fontaines have six elements in total within their magic system, namely Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Aether and Void. These six elements are called upon and combined to produce spells. * Fire governs the processes of heat, flames, combustion, deflagration, explosions and such. It can apply the concept of conversion of stored energy into usable energy * Water governs all fluid dynamics, as well as the liquid states of most substances. It can also apply the concepts of flow and flexibility. * Air governs the gaseous state of substances, and also that of charged ions. It can affect the processes of breathing, winds and even weather. Air gives the concept of intangible. * Earth governs the solid state of substances, as well as geological features. Earth is very tied together with molecules and natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. It also governs rigidity. * Aether governs the aspect of "filling", and is used to boost spells, or generate energies. Aether also materializes the imagination into reality. Movement and change is governed by this. * Void governs the aspect of emptiness, and inversion. Stagnation and stasis is governed by this. Elemental Transformation is often practiced for destruction magic, as use of it for such always requires the least steps, for most of the elements can already be used for direct attack in some way or another. The elements are called upon to do the bidding of the caster, and by combining elements in a certain way or order, the caster can use her magicka to cause an effect related to the element she has called upon. This can be used for many purposes, and for all intents and purposes, is almost direct manipulation of the elements in short bursts. Some effects are as follows: * The combination of Fire and Void in magic allows the practitioner to lower temperature or even drain energy, depending on the definition used. * The combination of Aether, Air and Water can be used to manipulate weather. * The combination of Aether, Water and Earth can actually be used to manipulate plants or even grow plants in completely inhospitable environments. * The combination of Aether and Earth is used to create temporary weapons. The reason why Elemental Transformation is not as versatile as a Fontaine power is because the element, once fixed in effect and choice, cannot be changed. Also, the magicka cost for the same output as a Fontaine power is vastly increased, considering the total energy used. Even when charging time and casting time is concerned, a Fontaine power can cast immediately, while Elemental Transformation always takes time. It is a much weaker ability for direct combat than the primary power of any Male Fontaine. The power of Elemental Transformation lies in how versatile it is, being able to mix all sort of elemental effects to cast spells that gain unusual abilities, such as powerful blasts of force or a vortex of flame strong enough to incinerate even a flame atronach. The magicka cost of casting Elemental Transformation isn't low, but it is manageable for most Female Fontaines. There is pair of conflicting elements. Aether, the invisible matter that fills the void, and Void the emptiness of space. There is only a single method to use them in the same spell, which requires understanding of how the concepts of Void and Aether function in general. Void and Aether can successfully be combined with other elements easily to strengthen spells or even invert their effects. Combining the Void and Aether correctly can allow the user to bend space. All Female Fontaines have an "elemental alignment", which will govern the elements they can use better than the others. It will align them with one of the six elements of the Fontaine magic system. It doesn't prevent a user from learning all the elemental transformations, but using elements related to their alignment makes it easier for the caster to actuate her spell. The alignment rules are as follows: * Any conventional alignment will normally weaken the alignment of a female Fontaine to the other elements. Thus, if a Fontaine is aligned to water, their alignment to flame, air and earth will weaken. * A female Fontaine is never aligned to more than three elements in total. * Void and aether alignment is not affected by conventional alignments. * The void and aether alignments always oppose each other and high alignment to either weakens the alignment to the other one at all times. * A female Fontaine more strongly aligned to an element can learn and master their element with exponentially less effort than one who is less strongly aligned. * A female Fontaine less aligned to an element than another will take exponentially more effort to master their element than one who is more strongly aligned * A female Fontaine with no known alignments is known as an "Average One" and would take the shortest time to master all six elements if such a route is taken. When casting Elemental Transformation, very obvious glyphs start to appear before the caster, at her point of focus, which can be her hand, or the tip of her wand/weapon. This telegraphs the attack to opponents if they are aware of what it does, although the spell cast cannot be discerned from the glyph's shape or formation. Also, once aimed the aim of the glyph cannot be altered. The glyph will always be the origin of the effect, which means it can fire the effect, or can explode like a rune spell. Skilled practitioners can place the glyphs on surfaces or even make them appear mid air, at a distance away. Higher mastery of Elemental Transformation and great familiarity with the processes involved allows the practitioner to resolve the spell faster, which leaves less room for enemies to avoid the effects after the glyphs appear. Spells which are completely mastered can be cast even faster than normal magic and normally only leave glyphs for such a short time that people won't notice them appearing. Known Practitioners * Vylliara Fontaine (First user of the art, creator, master of all Fontaine Exorcism) * Remillia Fontaine (Fontaine Magical Girl, but she is an Elemental Transformation expert) * Ariel Fontaine (Master level Elemental Transformation user. Extremely proficient with flame transformation.) * Iorilei Fontaine (Master level in Rune Seals, Elemental Transformation and Spirit Awakening. Probably the second greatest user of Fontaine Exorcism after Vylliara herself.) * Emilia Fontaine (Has great knowledge in Elemental Transformation. "Witch of the Void" who invented the Void Aether system. Aether and Void based. Basic knowledge of rune seals.) * Celestine Fontaine (Advanced rune seal user. Skilled at using Aether and Air transformation to generate electricity.) * Elisa Fontaine (basic Elemental Transformation. User of Flame and Water transformation to perform explosion magic.) Category:Powers and Abilities Category:ACA Fontaine Family